Concerning Romantic Love in England and America, there is less to be
said under the head of National Peculiarities than in case of the
continental nations of Europe, for the simple reason that almost
everything said in the pages on Modern Love refers especially to these
two countries. Anglo-American Love is Romantic Love, pure and simple, as
first depicted by Shakspere, and after him, with more or less accuracy,
by a hundred other poets and novelists. There is no lack of colour in
this Love—colour warm and glowing—but it is no longer a mere local
colour, a national or provincial peculiarity, but Love in its essence,
its cosmopolitan aspect; Love such as will in course of time prevail
throughout the world, when the Anglisation of this planet—which is only
a question of time—shall have been completed.
England has many a bright jewel in the crown of her achievements in
behalf of civilisation, but the brightest of all is this, that she was
the first country in the world—ancient, mediæval, or modern—that removed
the bars from woman’s prison-windows, opened every door to Cupid, and
made him thoroughly welcome and comfortable. And grateful Cupid has
retaliated by setting up English manners and customs as a model which
all other nations are slowly but surely copying. Eighteen million souls
in the United States, or almost two persons in every five, are not of
English origin; yet of these there are not one million who have not
given up their old country methods of courtship as antiquated, and
adopted the Anglo-American style. The Germans in America make love not
after the German but after the English fashion. So do the French, though
somewhat more reluctantly and tardily. In San Francisco and Chicago it
is said that but one name in ten is of English origin; yet who ever
heard of a San Franciscan or Chicagoan making love in foreign style?
During the last hundred years the majority of the immigrants to America
have come from non-English countries; yet, though the parents enter the
country as adults with all their national traditions stamped on their
memories, they invariably allow their sons and daughters to court and be
courted in American style. And now that England is gradually extending
her influence to every one of the five continents, Romantic Love—to
whose sway, quite as much as to their outdoor active life, the English
owe the fact that they are to-day the handsomest and most energetic race
in the world—is also rapidly extending its sphere, and will finally oust
the last vestiges of Oriental despotism, feminine suppression, and
mediæval masculine barbarism.
For some centuries woman has been more favoured by law, and especially
by national custom, in England than in any other European state. It is
true that the Englishman who beats his wife is the most brutal savage on
the face of the globe, but he is to be found only among the lowest
classes. Nor has wife-selling ever been quite such a universal custom in
England as foreigners imagine; although cases are on record as far back
as 1302 and as late as 1884. In an article in _All the Year Round_ (Dec.
20, 1884) more than twenty cases are enumerated with full details, the
price of a wife varying from twenty-five guineas to a pint or half a
pint of beer, or a penny and a dinner; and the _Times_ of July 22, 1797,
remarks sarcastically: “By some mistake or omission, in the report of
the Smithfield market, we have not learned the average price of wives
for the week. The increasing value of the fair sex is esteemed by
several eminent writers the certain criterion of increasing
civilisation. Smithfield has, on this ground, strong pretensions to
refined improvement, as the price of wives has risen in that market from
half a guinea to three guineas and a half.”
That these cases occurred only among the lowest classes is self-evident;
yet even the lowest classes often resented the brutal transaction by
pelting the offenders with stones and mud; whereas, as far as the women
were concerned, the offence was mitigated by the fact that in all cases
on record they appear to have been only too glad to be sold, so as to
get rid of their tyrants.
It cannot be said that English women are all exempt from the hardest
manual labour even to-day; but the tendency to relieve them of tasks
unsuited to feminine muscular development has existed longer in England
than elsewhere. The difference can be best observed with regard to
agricultural labour. Any one who travels through Italy, Switzerland,
France, or Germany in the autumn, gets the impression that most of the
harvesting is done by the women; whereas in England, as shown by
statistics, there are twenty-two men to every woman engaged as
field-labourers. Yet even at that rate there are still 64,840 women in
England engaged in agricultural labour unsuited to their sex.
On the other hand, English women, like American women, are manifesting a
great disposition at present to try their hand or brain at almost every
employment heretofore considered exclusively masculine. The census
enumerates 349 different classes of work, and of these all but about 70
have been invaded by women; including 5 horse-dealers, 14 bicycle makers
and dealers, 16 sculptors, 18 fence makers, 19 fossil diggers, etc.;
whereas there are as yet no female pilots, dentists, police officers,
shepherds, law students, architects, cab-drivers, commercial travellers,
barristers, etc. [Full list in _Pall Mall Gazette_, Oct. 3, 1884.]
Inasmuch as there are almost a million more women than men in England,
it is not surprising that women should thus seek to extend their sphere
of usefulness. We live in an experimental epoch, when it is to be
ascertained what is and what is not becoming to woman regarded as a
labourer. It is therefore of the utmost importance that there should be
some standard by which each employment is to be judged. And this
standard, fortunately, is supplied by Romantic Love.
We have seen that the tendency of civilisation has been to differentiate
the sexes more and more in appearance, character, and emotional
susceptibilities, and that on this differentiation depends the existence
and power of Love, because it _individualises_ man and woman, and Love
is the more intense the more it is individualised.
Hence every employment which tends to make woman masculine in appearance
or habits is to be tabooed by her because antagonistic to Love. If she,
nevertheless, persists in it, Love will have its revenge by eliminating
her through Sexual Selection. No man will marry a masculine woman, or
fall in love with her, so that her unnatural temperament will not be
transmitted to the next generation and multiplied.
But what is to be accepted as the standard of femininity? The answer is
given us by Nature. Throughout the animal world, with a few
insignificant exceptions, the sexes are differentiated distinctly; and
the female is the more tender and gentle of the two, the more devoted to
domestic affection and the care and education of the young, the more
amiable, and, above all, less aggressive, bold, and pugnacious than the
male. “Any education which women undergo,” says the _Spectator_, “should
be an education not for the militant life of war against evil but for
the spiritual life inspiring a persuasive or patient charity.... Even in
a field properly suited to them—the field of charitable institutions, of
poor-law work, of educational representation—women no sooner take up the
cudgels than they lose their appropriate influence, and are either
unsexed or paralysed.”
According to Mr. Ruskin, “woman’s work is—(1) To please people. (2) To
feed them in dainty ways. (3) To clothe them. (4) To keep them orderly.
(5) To teach them.”
Statistics concerning the employments instinctively sought by the
majority of women bear out Mr. Ruskin’s table quite well. Woman’s first
duty is to please people by being beautiful, amiable, and fascinating in
conversation and manners. No man would marry a woman unless she pleased
him in one way or another; hence matrimony is the most successful female
profession, which in England includes 4,437,962 women. But there are
other ways in which women seek to please and prosper; hence there are in
England 2368 actresses as against 2197 actors, and 11,376 women whose
profession is music, as against 14,170 men.
Domestic service, which includes the “feeding in dainty ways” (though
too often the “dainty” must be omitted), employs 1,230,406 women in
England—about 30,000 fewer than industrial employments, which are
somewhat more popular owing to the greater individual liberty they allow
the employed. Yet domestic service is a much better preparation for
married life than labour in a manufactory; so that, other things being
equal, a labouring man looking for a wife would be apt to select one who
has learned how to take care of his home. This thought ought to help to
render domestic service more popular.
“To clothe them.” Dressmaking, staymaking (alas!), and millinery, employ
357,995 women in England.
“To keep them orderly.” Bathing and washing service employ 176,670
women; medicine and nursing, almost 50,000; missions, 1660.
“To teach them.” This, one of woman’s special vocations, eminently
suited to her capacity, employs 123,995 females.
If I have failed in correctly interpreting Mr. Ruskin’s oracle, I stand
subject to correction from that earnest labourer in the task of finding
for woman her proper sphere—a work for which he has not yet received the
recognition and thanks he deserves.
That marriage, and not miscellaneous employment, is woman’s true
destiny, is shown by the way in which Cupid influences statistics. Thus
there are in England about 29,000 school-mistresses aged 15-20, and
28,500 aged 25-45; but the time from 20-25, the period of courtship and
marriage, has only 21,000. In the case of dressmakers this fact is
brought out still more strikingly: 15-20—84,000; 20-25—76,000;
25-45—129,000, in round numbers.
Although, therefore, as Emerson remarks, “the circumstances may be
easily imagined in which woman may speak, vote, argue cases, legislate,
and drive coaches, if only it comes by degrees,” facts show that there
is more philosophy of the future in Mrs. Hawthorne’s remark that “Home,
I think, is the great arena for women, and there, I am sure, she can
wield a power which no king or emperor can cope with.”
A consideration of all the foregoing facts shows that Love may be safely
accepted as a guiding-star in making a proper division of the world’s
labour between men and women. And the reason why England and America
have made so much more progress than other nations in ascertaining
woman’s true capacity and sphere, is because she has been educated to a
point where she can assert her independence, and where she can inspire
as well as feel Love—thus making man humble, gallant, gentle, ready to
make concessions and remove restrictions. It is in England and America
alone that Love plays a more important _rôle_ in marriage than money and
social position; that the young are generally permitted to consult their
own heart instead of parental command; and that the opportunities for
courtship are so liberal and numerous that the young are enabled to fall
in love with one another not only for dazzling qualities of Personal
Beauty, viewed for a moment, but for traits of character, emotional
refinement, and a cultured intellect.
These two nations alone have fully taken to heart and heeded Addison’s
maxim that “Those marriages generally abound most with love and
constancy that are _preceded by a long courtship_. The passion should
strike root and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long
course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and
habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved.”
There is, however, a difference between English and American Love which
shows that we have learned Addison’s lesson even better than his own
countrymen. As Mr. Robert Laird Collier remarks in _English Home Life_:
“The American custom, among the mass of the people, of leaving young men
and young women free to associate together and to keep company with each
other for an indefinite length of time, without declaring their
intentions, is almost unknown in any country of Europe. It is not long
after a young man begins to show the daughter attentions before the
father gives intimation that he wishes to know what it means, and either
the youth declares his intentions or is notified to ‘cut sticks.’”
“Courtships in England are short, and engagements are long.”
The London _Standard_ doubtless exaggerates the difference between
English and American girls and their attitude toward men in the course
of an article, part of which may, nevertheless, be cited: “American
girls offer a bright example to their English sisters of a happy,
unclouded youth, and instances seem to be few of their abusing the
liberty which is accorded to them. Perhaps their immunity from
sentimental troubles arises from the fact that from earliest childhood
they have been comrades of the other sex, and are therefore not disposed
to turn a man into a demi-god because they only see one at rare
intervals under the eagle eye of a mother or aunt. A great revolution in
public opinion would be required ere English girls could be emancipated
to the extent which prevails on the other side of the Atlantic, and even
then it is doubtful whether the system would work well. The daughters of
Albion, with but few exceptions, are single-hearted, earnest, and prone
to look upon everything seriously. They often make the mistake of
imagining that a man is in love because he is decently civil.”
Yet in _German Home Life_, written from an English point of view, we
read that “There is no such thing as country life, as we understand it,
in Germany; no cosy sociability, smiling snugness, pleasant bounties and
hospitalities; and, above all, for the young folk, no freedom,
flirtation, boatings, sketchings, high teas, scamperings, and merriments
generally.” And again: “The sort of frank ‘flirtation,’ beginning openly
in fun and ending in amusement, which is common amongst healthy,
high-spirited boys and girls in England, and has no latent element of
intrigue or vanity in it, but is born of exuberant animal spirits,
youthful frolics, and healthy pastimes shared together, is forbidden to
her” (the German girl).
The _Standard_ itself apparently contradicts itself in another article
on “Flirtation,” concerning which it says: “It is usually so innocent
that it has become part of the education most of our young women pass
through in their training for society. The British matron smiles
contentedly when she sees that her daughter, just entered on her teens,
exhibits a partiality for long walks and soft-toned confabulations with
her cousin Fred or her brother’s favourite schoolmate. Three or four
such juvenile attachments will do the girl no harm, if they are gently
watched over by the parental eye. They serve to evolve the sexually
social instincts in a gradual way. Through them the bashful maiden
learns the nature of man in the same fashion as she takes lessons on the
piano. In a word, she is ‘getting her hand in’ for the real game of
matrimony that is to be played in a few years. Her youthful swains, of
course, derive their own instructions from these innocent amours....
Chivalrous feeling is developed which it takes a deal of worldly wisdom
to smother in after years.... When we observe this sentimentality in a
boy, we derive great amusement from it, but it should raise the lad in
our estimation. He has something in him to which ideals appeal, and his
early-developed susceptibility will—to use a beautiful but forgotten
word—engentle his nature.”
Perhaps the difference between English and American courtship and
flirtation is not so great as often painted, and is becoming less every
year, owing to the Americanisation of Europe.